Thursday, July 25, 2013

Moore Street – the campaign must go on

Every
state holds monuments which are important to its sense of identity. This is
particularly true of those states which have fought for freedom against foreign
occupation and oppression. Think of the USA and the American Revolutionary War.
Independence Hall in Philadelphia is where the Declaration of Independence was
signed; or Faneuil Hall in Boston which was the site of speeches setting the
scene for the subsequent war of independence or Paul Revere’s home.

The
French have the former Army ammunition dump at Les Invalides in Paris which was
stormed by revolutionaries and whose weapons were then used to attack the
Bastille.

The Vietnamese have
their Củ Chi system of tunnels which was
the base of operations for their Tết
Offensive in 1968. The people of South Africa have Robben island where
Madiba and other famous political prisoners courageously opposed the apartheid
regime.

And on it goes. Place after place. State after
state. Proud of their history. Proud of their resistance to injustice. Proud to
have fought and won their freedom.

Now
imagine the scandal, the outrage if Independence Hall was left to become
derelict or Les Invalides had fallen into disrepair or Robben Island was
abandoned to the elements?

Regrettably
that is what successive Irish governments have allowed to happen to 14-17 Moore
Street which was accepted as a National Monument by the Irish government in
2007. This is the place where, on the Friday evening of Easter week and with
the GPO in flames behind them, the surviving leaders of the 1916 Rising and the
men and women of the GPO garrison escaped to. Carrying a wounded James Connolly
they left the GPO by
a side entrance in Henry Street. Under sustained sniper fire from British
soldiers they managed to reach Moore Lane and then Moore Street.

The garrison entered number 10 and
tunnelled from one house to the next until they reached no 16 – Plunket’s a poultry
shop.

In a room in this terraced house
the members of Provisional Irish Government held their last council of war.
Pádraig Mac Piarais, Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada and
James Connolly met to decide their next move. They had hoped to reach the Four
Courts but that was clearly impossible. They looked at the possibility of
storming the British Army position at Parnell Street but that too was ruled
out.

Finally they decided that the only
sensible course of action open to them was to surrender and Elizabeth O’Farrell
was given the arduous and dangerous task of making her way to the British
lines. She met the British General Lowe in Tom Clarke’s shop a short distance away
in Parnell Street and a short time later Pearse signed the surrender document
at the Moore Street barricade.

These are what Taoiseach Enda
Kenny aptly described in a debate with me in the Dáil as ‘the laneways of history’. This isthe ‘battlefield site of
1916’ but much of it is to be concreted over to make way for a shopping
mall!

Last week I was
among a delegation of Oireachtas members who visited the national monument in Moore
Street. I was shocked and dismayed by the condition of the buildings. They
stand in a state of considerable dereliction and decay. No other state in the
world would allow such an iconic national monument to deteriorate into such a
shameful condition. The roofs are in poor condition; there are serious
structural problems with ceilings and walls, and dampness is everywhere; joists
are severely decayed and some floors are unstable and have sagged, and there is
substantial rot in timber rafters.

On the same day as our visit the Minister
of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan TD announced his proposals for
the preservation and development of 14-17 Moore Street which I welcome but
these proposals exclude the battlefield site which is disappointing.

The Minister’s decision changes important aspects
of the plan by the owners of the site, Chartered Lands. This company is owned
by Joseph O’Reilly who has been described in the media as ‘NAMA’s largest client with debts of close to
€3bn’ and who is paid
a salary of €200,000 out of the public purse by NAMA.

The Minister’s changes
are in part good news. He has consented to works
on the National Monument which, he states, ‘are
considered necessary for the conservation and preservation of the National
Monument’.

The
work consented to seems consistent with the preservation and restoration of the
National Monument and the development of the commemorative centre.

However,
the Minister has also consented to the demolition of Numbers 13, 18 and 19
Moore Street on the grounds that they are post-1916 structures. This
facilitates the destruction of the terrace 10-25 Moore Street. This means that
he has confined himself to his remit under the National Monuments Act to 14 to
17 Moore Street alone. He has not acted on his overall responsibility as
Heritage Minister to preserve this historic area – Moore Street and the ‘laneways of history’ behind it, the
evacuation route from the GPO and the entire battlefield site.

So,
the campaign to save Moore Street, led by the families of the 1916 Leaders,
must continue. A delegation of TDs met the Minister this Tuesday. I told him this
in our conversation.

I and the other TDs urged
him to engage with all of the stakeholders
– the 1916 relatives, all property owners in the area and not just Chartered
Land, the National Museum, NAMA and other relevant State agencies and NGOs with
the aim of framing a new plan to fully preserve the National Monument and the
terrace in which it stands, but also to develop the Historic 1916
Quarter/Battlefield Site.

The
preservation of the National Monument and of Moore Street and the surrounding
streetscape would allow for the development of a Historic 1916 Quarter
encompassing the entire Moore St/O’Connell St. area. This would have ample
scope for commercial and retail development, helping to rejuvenate this
neglected part of our capital.

In
my view all this needs to be done quickly so that when the centenary of the
1916 Rising takes place that Moore Street and its environs will be a place
every Irish man and woman will be proud to visit.